. Forum

[indigomachine]

In fairness, NYU's PI placement was pretty significant even for the class of 2008:

http://www.law.nyu.edu/careerservices/e ... /index.htm

Contrast that with Penn, which never really got in to the whole PI thing:

https://www.law.upenn.edu/careers/emplo ... istics.php

For class of 2008, 75% of NYU went into law firms, versus 76% of Penn.

While 9.2% of NYU went into PI and 2.7% of Penn did the same during 2008.

[IAFG]

Is it just Philly ties that give Penn the edge, or PA in general? I've got ties to Pittsburgh, and wouldn't mind working K&L Gates or ReedSmith, though NYC is definitely my top choice. Would Penn still have an edge here?

I mean, the point is really that you have a back-up market. Pittburgh, Philly and Wilmington are all going to find it plausible that you might really come to work there, and NYC doesn't care, so that's really all upside for you.

IAFG, would you say that someone who's backup market is not generally targeted from NYU is in a better/worse/or the same situation as someone who is NY or bust and how does this person compare to a Penn student with PA ties? Backup market being Chicago (backup, backup, backup being Indy).

I mean it's kind of a mental masturbation question, but IMO having ties to a backup market is always better (a real market, not somewhere that has no jobs, like Oregon). People get nervous about massmailing, which is necessary if you're looking at markets/firms that don't recruit at your school, but it's a strategy that doesn't use up bids and can be quite fruitful.

[rayiner]

In fairness, NYU's PI placement was pretty significant even for the class of 2008:

http://www.law.nyu.edu/careerservices/e ... /index.htm

Contrast that with Penn, which never really got in to the whole PI thing:

https://www.law.upenn.edu/careers/emplo ... istics.php

For class of 2008, 75% of NYU went into law firms, versus 76% of Penn.

So then in 2008 the answer to the question of "who can better place people at the bottom of the class?" was NYU.

Actually the 75% figure NYU uses is based only on employed graduates, so nevermind.

The difference in PI placement between NYU and Penn in 2008 was about +7%, which is almost entirely offset by the 6% more of Penn folks who clerked.

[Tiago Splitter]

The difference in PI placement between NYU and Penn in 2008 was about +7%, which is almost entirely offset by the 6% of Penn folks who clerked.

NYU counts clerks separately too.

[Law Sauce]

I saw a lot of threads that made it seem like CCN weren't a tier and that NYU was much closer to Penn for NYC big firm jobs. A lot of this I think was sparked by the Penn > NYU on that NLJ250 list. Some people were saying "CCP." But then I started looking at the 2012 summer associate data thread regarding this summer's raw placement at some of the very best corporate law firms in US, and now I'm a bit confused:

Skadden
NYU 10
Penn 1

Cravath
NYU 13
Penn 1

Davis Polk
NYU 26
Penn 2

According to LSN, NYU has a 1L class size of 476 and Penn has a 1L class size of 249 so we definitely need to account for that. Other difference could be self selection, but are Penn students really opting out of SAs at Cravath? Just kind of confused by the disparity between the NLJ chart and this 2012 SA raw data.

The question was "Are NYU and Penn Equals to NYC large firms?" Clearly, it seems that they are not, at least not at the top. Thats seems to be the only point made by the OP, and it seems correct.

[rayiner]

The difference in PI placement between NYU and Penn in 2008 was about +7%, which is almost entirely offset by the 6% of Penn folks who clerked.

NYU counts clerks separately too.

Right. My point is that in 2008, NYU and Penn placed about the same into law firms. Out of the rest, a lot of NYU folks did public interest, while at Penn a correspondingly large contingent did clerkships.

It's also interesting to look at 2011. NYU had 31 more school-funded placements in 2011 than it did in 2008. If you consider these 31 placements to be undesirable outcomes (and all of Penn's school-funded placements to be undesirable outcomes), it looks like Penn did much better at the bottom:

Code: Select all

                NYU           Penn
Not employed:   4.3%         4.4%
School funded:  6.7%         4.3%
Firm < 50 atty: 14%          5.8%
Total:          25%         14.5%

This isn't the whole list of undesirable outcomes (I didn't count state clerkships, b/c I didn't want to do the math), but Penn comes out looking much better.

My interpretation of this is that Penn and NYU were roughly the same during the boom, but when the economy tanked NYU ran into difficulties placing the bottom of its class given it has no fallback markets besides NYC.

[JamMasterJ]

Is it just Philly ties that give Penn the edge, or PA in general? I've got ties to Pittsburgh, and wouldn't mind working K&L Gates or ReedSmith, though NYC is definitely my top choice. Would Penn still have an edge here?

I mean, the point is really that you have a back-up market. Pittburgh, Philly and Wilmington are all going to find it plausible that you might really come to work there, and NYC doesn't care, so that's really all upside for you.

IAFG, would you say that someone who's backup market is not generally targeted from NYU is in a better/worse/or the same situation as someone who is NY or bust and how does this person compare to a Penn student with PA ties? Backup market being Chicago (backup, backup, backup being Indy).

I mean it's kind of a mental masturbation question, but IMO having ties to a backup market is always better (a real market, not somewhere that has no jobs, like Oregon). People get nervous about massmailing, which is necessary if you're looking at markets/firms that don't recruit at your school, but it's a strategy that doesn't use up bids and can be quite fruitful.

Yeah, my plan is to bid around 10 firms in Chicago and the rest in NY and then mass mail the shit out of Chi and lolIndianapolis.

[BruceWayne]

This isn't the whole list of undesirable outcomes (I didn't count state clerkships, b/c I didn't want to do the math), but Penn comes out looking much better.

My interpretation of this is that Penn and NYU were roughly the same during the boom, but when the economy tanked NYU ran into difficulties placing the bottom of its class given it has no fallback markets besides NYC.

Exactly.

What's with this weird thing about judging a school only by what it can do for the top of the class? I notice that lot of people like doing that. Frankly, even a lot of the schools that people routinely bash on here (i.e lower top 100 and worse) can place the top of the class into big firms. There's nothing special about that. And really if you judge a school's placement only by the top of the class, then you need to put Harvard above everyone else.

[indigomachine]

Right. My point is that in 2008, NYU and Penn placed about the same into law firms. Out of the rest, a lot of NYU folks did public interest, while at Penn a correspondingly large contingent did clerkships.

It's the Penn clerkship bias!! (kidding)

Actually, thought NYU had been doing pretty well with clerkships lately? No?...

[rayiner]

Right. My point is that in 2008, NYU and Penn placed about the same into law firms. Out of the rest, a lot of NYU folks did public interest, while at Penn a correspondingly large contingent did clerkships.

It's the Penn clerkship bias!! (kidding)

Actually, thought NYU had been doing pretty well with clerkships lately? No?...

NYU has been trending up in clerkships, I think as PI/gov jobs become difficult to get. PI/gov/big law/clerkships are a somewhat fungible set of categories because people self-select into them. What's harder to explain away is the large increase in small firm placement at NYU versus Penn.

[Yukos]

For a 0L who might be choosing between these two, this debate has been really informative and helpful, thanks everyone who's contributed.